Yeager's Second Book

Last year, I did a brief review of Yeager, the autobiography of General Chuck Yeager, the first man to break the Sound Barrier.  He has led an incredible life, from his humble West Virginia upbringing to his days as a fighter pilot in World War II, onward through years as a test pilot for the latest and greatest aircraft, and he even ran an Astronaut training program.  He is quite a fascinating and inspiring character, something of an "everyman" who downplays his own greatness at every turn.

A few years after the success of his autobiography, Yeager put together a second volume, with new details and stories about his life.  Press On: Further Adventures in the Good Life is more of a supplement to the first book, filling in gaps in his life story and they're not always told in-sequence.  While the first book was pretty straight chronologically (starting with his childhood onwards), this second volume is more a collection of stories that are interspersed throughout his life.  They are fun and entertaining to read, just as the first book, and they're told in a very non-literary manner.  It's like listening to an old flyboy telling you about himself in a laid back, cozy manner.

For those who want to learn more about this incredible American, I highly recommend this book and its predecessor.  Read them as a pair, and get a full dose of Yeager!  You will not be disappointed.

Assignment in Eternity -By Robert A. Heinlein (Review)

Like many sci-fi fans over the years, I must say that my favorite writer is Robert A. Heinlein.  I first read Citizen of the Galaxy as a teenager, and I was instantly hooked on his fantastic tales.  I've read almost everything he wrote, and while there were a few low points (as with any prolific writer), the vast majority of his books and short stories are pure gold.

Assignment in Eternity is one of his few selections which had eluded me until recently.  It's a collection of four novellas he wrote in the 1940's.  They were published in different pulp magazines of the day.

Like many of Heinlein's stories, these are a little dated, with technology and sociological events which haven't quite come true.  He also uses his mind-over-matter plot device a lot in these stories.  We see the mind used to perform unimaginable tasks, such as crossing time, traveling to alternate realities, and even stopping the aging process, all by force of will and mental suggestion.  These metaphysical elements prove to be a set of prototypes, as they resurface in some of his future books and stories.  We also see some social conjecture about slavery, and the value of life, which may have been new back in the day, but is very old and familiar today.

As a Heinlein fan, it was nice to read something else by the Grand Master, though I can't say these stories were anything special.  In fact, I wouldn't recommend them for your average reader who isn't already familiar with Heinlein's work.  While they are halfway decent, they're nowhere near his best, and as such should be sampled only after someone is already hooked by other, more exciting and relevant tales.

I rate this one 3.5 out of 5 stars.  It's by no means as bad as For Us, The Living, but it's no Glory Road or Methuselah's Children, either.

Rogue Investigations=Bargain!

The Rogue Investigations is only 99 cents for the Kindle, so those of you with electronic readers can enjoy the book my biggest fans have called my "best" work for next to nothing.  If that isn't enough, how about a free random clip from the middle of the text:

"You big city sons-a-whores think you're gonna come up here and disrupt my livelihood?" Rage heard as he woke up. His arms and legs were cramped, and tied securely to a chair.


"I'm from Texas," Nathan replied. "Do you even know where that is, you inbred piece of crap?"


"Yeah, there's plenty of cities in Texas. Irregardless, you still got no business coming up here and trying to do what you did."


Rage cracked his eyes open a little to see who was speaking. That chubby runt was the one with the loud voice arguing with Nathan. He was holding a kerosene lamp in his left hand that illuminated the small, ratty cabin they were in. It didn't appear to be much, and the cold breeze blowing in proved that it was far from weatherproof. There were two other men behind the fat man, though they didn't look like much. A couple of skinny local boys with plaid shirts and scruffy beards. They liked to grin a lot, despite their lack of dental hygiene.


"Ah, looks like your boyfriend's awake," the fat man said, jabbing Rage in the leg with a boot. Rage tried to jump up in response, but the chair was bolted down.


One of the snaggle-toothed boys behind him said, "Careful, Bunny. He looks the type to bite."


"He won't be bitin' nothing but a bullet in a few hours," the fat man said. He flashed the lamp in front of Rage's face to get a good look.


"You'll never get away with this," Nathan protested. "The authorities..."


"Will never find you," the fat man said, sounding amused. "Moosehead Lake's got plenty of deep spots to hide a body, and I know 'em all. Now, you just sleep tight, and old Bunyan Green will be back to check on ya in the morning."


Nathan held his tongue as the three men sauntered out of the cabin, leaving the room in total darkness.


Both men sat in silence, waiting to be sure their captors had truly left before striking up a conversation. Several hours passed, and the faint signs of dawn began shining through the single window of the cabin.


"Mind explaining how we got into this mess?" Rage asked, glancing over to see Nathan's eyes wide open.


"It's complicated, and I'm not wholly sure myself," Nathan said.



Alternate Cover Version
Available from
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"Why'd you call me up here, and why'd you beat the crap out of me?" Rage grumbled in a mad whisper.

"I honestly don't remember fighting you, but I called you because I couldn't call anyone else."

"Gee, thanks."

*For those of you who lack a Kindle (or just want to pick up the old fashioned, paper version), it's only $10.98 on Amazon, or you can visit my AuthorStore, and get a signed copy for even less!  You can't go wrong with this one.

Yeager -An Autobiography (Review)

Last month, I had the chance to watch "The Right Stuff" for the first time. I know how odd it might seem that someone like me, a veritable space-nut, had never seen this film about the Mercury Astronauts and early rocket flight. The movie came out when I was only 3 years old, so it was something that had escaped my attention for all these years.

After I watched the movie (which was excellent, by the way), my father mentioned I might like to read Chuck Yeager's autobiography. He'd picked up a copy of it at a local used bookstore a while back, so there was no waiting or searching for it online. I was able to dig in the very next day.

Yeager's autobiography is an exciting account of his life, starting with his humble upbringing in West Virginia, continuing through his time as a fighter pilot in WWII, his breaking of the Sound Barrier in the X1, and onward until his retirement as a Brigadier General in 1975. It's an altogether amazing true-life story.

The book is told in a very informal manner. Most of it is like sitting down and listening to an old fighter pilot talk about his exploits. There are also little asides speckled throughout the book called "other voices," where someone important in Chuck's life (such as his wife Glennis, or old friend Bud Anderson) will add their perspective. This unusual format made this one of the most entertaining history books I've ever read.

If you have any interest in early rocket flight, WWII flyers, or just want to read about an exceptional American hero, you can't go wrong with Yeager's autobiography. It's a 5-star read all the way.

Early Critics and The Guns of Mars

Back in 2009, when the Guns of Mars was a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, it received quite a bit of praise, but there were some detractors. Most of the negative comments came from fellow contestants, who thought they could improve their chances by writing up negative comments about their competitors. Of course, those reviews were only based on the first 5,000 words (the free excerpt Amazon displayed), so the negative reviewers often had to stretch their imaginations and make wild assumptions about the book's content.

In response, I threw together my own review, combining all of the negative comments and weaving them into a lampoon of those critics. I repost it here for those of you who haven't seen it before.

You suck! (1-star)

That sums up what I think of this writer in a nutshell. His writing is just so abhorrent I don't know where to begin. Let's start with chapter one. What the heck is going on? We're dumped right in the middle of the story, where Morgan (a guy with a girl's name?) is stranded on Mars. There's some kind of conspiracy going on, but we don't know how or why (lack of information is annoying here). He rambles on about missing his wife (hello, Elton John?), and then goes to sleep. We're told briefly about some interesting technology, like a space heater and a fancy pressure tent, but there's no technical schematics detailing how this technology works. Perhaps he is too stupid to describe the physics behind a "carbon scrubber?"

Next, we move into chapter two, which throws us back to the start of the story. Morgan sits in a classroom, learning about going to Mars (boring). A childish "colonel" comes in and acts like a prima-donna teenie-bopper, not a real military officer, and we discover she's somehow uncovered the secret to aging and reversed it? What does that have to do with Martian colonization? We also find out that Morgan is from the past, and there's virtual reality technology around? What? Too many plot threads are cropping up to confuse the feeble minded.

To wrap this excerpt up, Morgan goes home and has dinner with his wife (more boring), and we're left wondering what the heck he'll do next. Like I care!

This excerpt was boring, lacked technical detail, didn't have any gunplay (hello, Guns of Mars?), and the writer spent way too much time on character development. Who cares what these people think and feel? Let's get some action, and blow things up!

This book also looks way too complicated to be good. I mean, every complex story with such varied plotlines ends up sucking, just like that Dune series by that Herbert guy, and don't get me started on Heinlein. This writer does too much, and not enough at the same time. Not only that, but I bet he smells like turnips. Just my impression.

Such a scathing critique! It was very entertaining to throw this together back then, and I think it still stands up today. I had quite a few people complain that I spent too much time on character development, so it struck me by surprise when a recent review claimed I didn't do enough in that respect.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this little blast from the past. Tune in next week for another adventurous review.

Drifter -By William C. Dietz (Review)

If you're looking for a fast-paced science fiction story without a lot of subtext, Drifter by William C. Dietz is for you.

The story primarily follows Pik Lando, a dashing smuggler who is hired by a group of religious pacifists known as "The Chosen" to haul a very special cargo. The Chosen take the idea of religious pacifism to the extreme, kind of like the Amish of Space, and it turns out they've settled on a planet that is half-owned by an "evil" mining consortium, which wants to drive them off. The passive Chosen can't bring themselves to fight back in a straightforward manner, so they've devised a plan to peacefully defeat the mining company, but they need Lando's help to complete it.

There is a bit of melodrama in this, and a romantic fling between Lando and the young lady who recruits him to help The Chosen. This meshes with the overall theme of the story, and it doesn't get too sappy.

This was the first book I ever read by William C. Dietz, and it was enjoyable. The story was pretty straightforward and sometimes predictable. It's a fun little space opera, with all the action & adventure a Sci-Fi fan could ask for. One thing that could have been improved is the setting, which is left quite vague. We know the characters live in a universe where there is a human "empire" colonizing space, and there are various aliens and cyborgs mixed in here and there for flavoring, but the background of society is mostly left to the reader's imagination.

Overall, I'd set this book at 3.5 out of 5 stars. It's good, but nothing really special, and I found the two sequels to be much better.


I picked up my copy of Drifter for $1 at a used bookstore, and I see there are some affordable used copies on Amazon. I was shocked to see the Kindle version of this book set at $9.99, and I would not recommend that anyone pay that kind of money for this. You'll find the Kindle listing for the book to the left, as there are some interesting reviews posted with it, as well as links to the used paperback copies which can be had for a more reasonable price. As a writer, myself, I understand that my fellow wordsmiths and their publishers need to make money, but charging $9.99 for a Kindle book is outrageous. That's just my opinion, and if you feel differently, by all means, buy the expensive version.

The Elements of Style

I'd like to take a moment to introduce you to one of my favorite little books on writing. The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White is not a large text, and it isn't something that'll tell you how to be the next big name author, but it is a nice collection of style pointers that every writer should know.

The book goes over a lot of commonly misused words, it explains the proper way to use a comma, and it also gives many pointers on basic writing composition. You'd be surprised how many "classes" these days are actually teaching things contrary to these classical elements of style, and I think it is a shame.

That being said, even I do not completely adhere to every rule given in this book. However, I do take note of them, and follow most of them most of the time. There are certain elements which I follow to the letter, such as the extra comma when separating 3 or more terms with a single conjunction (such as this, that, and another thing).

I recommend that anyone involved with the publishing industry (writers, editors, proofreaders, etc...) get a copy of this book and read it. Even if you don't follow all of the style elements, you should at least be aware of them, and recognize the value of traditional composition.

An Amazing Find

Yesterday, I uncovered a piece of my family history.

A friend of mine is moving, so he asked me if I'd like to have a few boxes of old books he wanted to give away.  I'm never one to pass up the opportunity to add to my library, so I drove up to his place on Sunday afternoon and was greeted by several unexpected surprises.

It turned out, he not only had some books to give away, but a whole bunch of old mason jars for canning.  I've been meaning to increase my supply for some time, and hope to have a large garden next year, so this was really a Godsend.  I had the cab of my ranger packed full before I was ready to leave.

Before driving off, I took a look at one of the boxes of books, and one caught my eye.  It was "New Russia's Primer" by M. Ilin, and it just so happens that the man who translated the book into english was none other than my great-grandfather, George S. Counts!  What an unexpected discovery.  Mind you, the book itself is about how great the Soviet Socialist 5-Year Plan was, but it's still interesting to have some little piece of my ancestral heritage.

Counts wrote an short introduction to the book, and it's the only thing by him that I've ever had the chance to read.  Out of the dozens of books he penned during his career as an educator, I don't have any.  No doubt, some members of my father's family have copies tucked away somewhere, but I'm not sure who, or whether they'd be willing and able to send them to me.  All of his books have been out of print for years, and most are hard to find.

This was an amazing find.  It just goes to show that you never know when something interesting will be dumped in your lap.